Tag Archives: grandfather

Three Years Later…

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I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the evening of the 28th of December and I was still in the Chicago office. I texted my mom to see if she wanted me to be at my grandparents’ apartment.

Mom suggested that I go home (my own apartment at the time) since it was snow hard out and the roads were slick. So I did what I was told.

My phone was on silent and I went to sleep, but something woke me up and just before midnight I noticed I missed a few calls from mom and her text message

He’s gone.

A relief actually. After a slow decline over the course of two years he finally found rest.

Only a few days prior my mom and I were half joking about when my grandfather would pass away. She said:

I begged him to avoid the 24, 25, 27, 31, and 1st.

In case you were wondering my parents’ anniversary is the 27th of December.

So he passed the evening of the 28th… a little after 11:00 pm. Granted his death certificate says 1:00 am on the 29th of December, but that was when the funeral home picked up his body and the death certificate was official.

My uncle and I drove to my grandparents’ apartment the moment we were awake and able (meaning around midnight), and we stayed until my grandfather’s body was taken away.

Why wasn’t I there when he passed? As it turns out, my grandfather wrote a letter years prior with the people he wanted to be there when he passed: his wife (my grandmother) and my mom. And hindsight being as it is… I understand why, doesn’t mean I have to like it…

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Reflection: Việt Nam Death Rituals… a Look Back

According to Vietnamese anthropologist Phạm Công Sơn (1996):

Death is not the end but is the final stage of one life to be transformed into another.

Two years ago I went to Việt Nam for a spell, to visit family while my paternal grandfather (ông nội) was still alive and ended up connecting with my paternal grandmother (bà nội). As my family and I were getting ready to leave for the states my paternal grandfather’s health made a turn for the worse and suddenly my father asked if I would be willing to stay behind to watch over my grandfather and keep everyone up-to-date in the states.

For a few minutes I was tempted… more than tempted really. However in the end I decided against it and went home, only for my grandfather’s health to deteriorate to the point that my parents and all my dad’s siblings flew back to Việt Nam to bury their father. I stayed home… wondering if perhaps I should have stayed in Việt Nam… I never got a chance to see the burial process, I was unaware of the traditions involved…

Over Labor Day weekend my father’s side of the family suffered a devastating loss… only two years after the passing of my ông nội (essentially the patriarch in the family)… The loss of the matriarch. This time I had a front seat view of the traditions since the timing was as such that within hours of setting foot in Sài Gòn my family and I would be saying goodbye to my bà nội.

Since this is my first time going through all the Vietnamese death rituals and traditions it is still kind of hard to describe a lot of what I just went though – being a first-generation in America I only know so much – so I scoured the internet for some thing that would go into enough detail of what I experienced and I could just add in my thoughts along the way… eventually I did.

At Ethonomed.com there is a very thorough article to goes step by step of what happened within that family and the rituals they have undergone and most of it is very accurate to what I have gone through.

Originally I was going to add photos to this to give an idea of some of the sights through my eyes, but on second thought those are very private photos and photos that I personally would not feel comfortable showing to a public audience. So instead the photos here are those of a similar nature that is a reflection of what I went through, but not exact. This is to protect the privacy of my family and relations not only stateside but in Việt Nam as well.
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